Numerical analysis on the fire behaviour of steel plate girders

This paper presents a numerical analysis on the fire behaviour of steel plate girders. The numerical model, used to perform a parametric study, was validated with results of an experimental study. The parametric study shows that steel plate girders, which develop local flange buckling due to bending moments at ambient temperature, may fail due to shear web buckling under fire conditions. A comparative study reveals that common simplified analytical models adopted from ambient temperature design using hot material properties only are not suitable and can even lead to unconservative design results for standard fire situations.